But now wasn’t the time to savor it. As soon as we got around the bend I saw Haley. She was sitting and speaking with a woman in an old-fashioned dress. They turned to look at us as we came into view, and I saw Haley consider running, then realize that she didn’t have enough of a head start to get away. Instead she gave us a concerned look and stood up. She said something to the other ghost and then came toward us.
“Hi. My name is Lemmi,” I introduced myself. Then I introduced Charlie and Hansen. Haley looked distinctly displeased.
“I thought I made it pretty clear last time that I wanted to be left alone. Yet here you are,” she said.
“We really have to talk to you,” said Charlie. “We don’t think that your death was natural. Neither does your sister.”
Haley’s eyes flashed at the mention of Henrietta. “Of course she doesn’t think it was natural. It wasn’t. She loves me and she wants to know what happened. Not surprising. What is surprising is that nobody ever figured anything out,” and Haley.
“But we came to figure something out and you ran away,” I pointed out.
Haley shifted on her floating feet. Now was the moment of truth. “Yes, I did. I had already been murdered, and whoever did it was never caught. I don’t remember what happened. Talking to you could not possibly have any benefit. All it can do is bring more pain.”
“It couldn’t bring more pain if the murderer were brought to justice. What if he kills again?” Charlie asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” said Haley.
Paws had maintained a remarkably dignified silence this whole time, made all the more shocking because he was not a dignified creature. He finally spoke up and said, “You’re worried about your sister, aren’t you?”
Haley turned painful eyes toward us. “Yes, of course. She didn’t have anything to do with what happened to me. So I don’t think anything should happen to her. I just have no control over it. I worry that whoever killed me will kill her if they find out she’s looking into my murder. I don’t think that’s far-fetched,” said Haley.
I thought about the article Charlie had just written in the Mintwood Gazette and wondered if that’s what Henrietta had been worried about when she’d asked Charlie not to quote her. They were sisters, after all, and Henrietta clearly wasn’t stupid.
Henrietta knew that her life might be in danger. Charlie couldn’t mention Henrietta except to say that her sister had taken over the shop from Haley when she died.
“A murderer can’t go free,” said Charlie. “Your sister wants to know what happened to you. I’m sure you have friends who also want to know what happened.”
“I didn’t have a lot of friends back then. I was entirely consumed with work. Getting the shop off the ground wasn’t easy. The loan I had to take out was expensive. I had spent the entire time I was working trying to pay it all back,” Haley explained.
“I read the articles from when you passed away. It sounded like you were working specifically with couples. Is that right?” Charlie asked.
Haley rolled her eyes. “Yeah, one of the couples was very easy-going about everything. She really didn’t care about the dress or even the wedding itself, she just wanted to be married. Her family was the same way. Her parents had gotten married wearing jeans and they been married for thirty years. They were more excited about the party afterwards. The reception was the best I’d ever done.”
“And the other couple?” I asked.
Haley rolled her eyes. “That was an entirely different story. The Robertsons wanted a lot of flash. She was particularly demanding about every aspect of the day. She wanted everything exactly her way. She wanted the best of the best of the flowers, the venue, the food, and all the rest. Everything had to cost a lot of money. Everything had to be something no one had had before. It would be the kind of wedding that would end up in a magazine. The only trouble was that in order to get it into a magazine, there had to be a lot of tears and crying first.”
“What about the guy she was marrying? He was the one who investigated your case,” I said.
“Yeah, I saw that too,” she said. “He wasn’t very good at his job, was he? He was kind of a bumbling guy. I have to be honest; I thought less of him for marrying her. Well, I suppose I didn’t know beforehand. He was marrying her, and I just didn’t think very well of him to begin with. If you’re in the service industry, you don’t have a lot of choice about who you work with.”
We lapsed into silence for a moment, then Hansen asked, “Were you afraid of anyone?”
“I wasn’t afraid of anything,” said Haley, her eyes going sad and distant. “I was so happy to have my own place.” She paused and then repeated herself. “I was so happy. . .”
We didn’t linger. Rebecca gazed at Hansen as we left. She didn’t say a word.
When we got home, we found that Jasper had let himself into the house with the key I had given him. I had tried to be chill about it, and more or less succeeded. Greer and Charlie had encouraged me, and that helped.
He was waiting in the kitchen, where he had put out some cheese and crackers and had the teakettle going. When I walked in he raised his dark eyebrows. He wasn’t at all pleased that we were, from his point of view, missing.
Charlie had stayed outside to say goodbye to Hansen. It was probably going to take a while, because Charlie was probably going to be awkward. She would want to know how Hansen’s first outing with the bracelet had gone, but she wouldn’t want to ask outright. It would proceed awkwardly from there. Paws could add color commentary that Charlie wouldn’t handle well and Hansen would.
Those sorts of nights had a decent chance of becoming common at the farmhouse.
“Your message earlier worried me,” said Jasper, gesturing to the tea and snacks.
“Sorry about that,” I told him.
Then he came over and gave me a hug, and I clung to him. I felt like it was my reward after a long and stressful day. Poor Greer was at the bar and wouldn’t be able to hug Deacon just yet, since he was still traveling.
“I think we need to talk about the Witch Hunters,” I said.
Jasper pulled away enough to examine my face. “We might indeed. You know, that might involve my grandfather?”
“He has involved himself anyway. He’s involved. He’s your family. If we have to talk to him, so be it,” I said.
Jasper sighed and nodded. “Did you talk to Josephine and Scarlett? What did they say?”
We sat down and I told him everything. We talked long into the night, despite the fact that I was exhausted. I couldn’t stop.
Jasper wasn’t happy about Rosalie’s response. There was no way around it, we were going to have a much harder time dealing with Ellie and the dark ghosts if the coven wasn’t on our side, and all evidence suggested that they were not.
“Hunters might still help us, even without the coven’s participation,” said Jasper. “I’m sure they’d love to catch some dark ghosts and witches.”
“I need to know more about them,” I said.
Jasper nodded. “I agree. I’ve been thinking the same thing. The only problem is that I don’t know a lot myself.”
“Maybe that’s where your grandfather comes in,” I suggested.
“Maybe so. Then again, maybe it’s asking for more trouble than it’s worth,” he said.
“You seem to be going back and forth on whether we should talk to him or not,” I pointed out.
“Before I think about it too hard,” said Jasper musingly, “talking to him sounds like a good idea. He’s smart. He’s a hard worker and he’s one of the most successful men I know. Also, he has seen a lot in his life.
“Then I think about it more, and I think about how he didn’t get along with your grandmother. I realize now that it was because they were opposites. I think about how he doesn’t like you and how he tried to convince me to stay away from you. For all I know, he’s still trying. I don’t think he was happy to hear that we had gotten back together. Anyway
, my point is that I don’t have a lot of confidence that talking to him will go well.”
“We may have to try anyhow,” I said.
“I know,” he said.
“On the bright side, we finally tracked down the ghost that I needed to talk to,” I said.
“Right. Because if you didn’t have enough on your plate, you also have a mystery,” said Jasper with a slight grin.
“Sure do,” I said, mirroring his look with a tired smile.
Charlie came in just then, looking breathless and grinning at us like a kid on Christmas morning.
“That was a long goodbye,” I said dryly. “Did you find out everything you wanted to know?”
“I suppose I did,” she said, two spots of pink forming on her cheeks.
I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing. Across the table, Jasper’s green eyes were twinkling.
“Just be careful. If the murderer is still around, who knows what they want, and who knows how far they’re willing to go,” he said.
“Unfortunately, we know exactly how far they’re willing to go. All the way to murder,” I said.
Chapter Nineteen
In the morning I was amused and delighted that Jasper Wolf was awakened by the sound of hammering. After a lot of grumbling through the preparation of breakfast, we sat down at the table in the nook. Charlie joined us a few minutes later.
Although the hammering was harder to hear in the kitchen, it was still perfectly audible. “Nice music we have to wake up to, don’t we?” she teased Jasper.
He shook his head and smothered a yawn. “They keep saying it isn’t going to last much longer, but we keep doing more.” Then he turned to me and said, “By the way, do you want to help with some of the design choices?”
I was in the middle of trying to secretly eat my cereal without being noticed. I had taken a rather large bite and now I had to chew . . . and chew and chew. Charlie sat back in her chair to watch. Jasper tried to glance away politely. I looked down, either out of embarrassment or so that all of the food would stay in my mouth.
I had to go back to Josephine and tell her that sometimes it was a real wonder I had a boyfriend at all, never mind Jasper Wolf.
“I don’t know anything about designing a house,” I told him. “I would probably do something wrong.”
“Whatever your own personal tastes are can’t be wrong,” he pointed out.
I glanced at Charlie, who was glaring at me. I shrugged. “I suppose it could be something to do for fun. Maybe pick out the paint colors? Help you choose between pine or oak flooring?”
“You don’t want laminate?” he frowned.
“Blasphemy. You can’t put that stuff into a two-hundred-year-old house,” said Charlie. “A new one maybe. You might like it better, or you might have to save on costs somewhere, I understand, but an old house? No. I just say no.”
“The floors are actually in pretty good condition. They’re being stripped, and then we’ll see. The walls aren’t in such good condition, as you’ve seen,” Jasper said.
“Sounds about right,” I murmured.
“Now if you’d just let me turn my attention to your porch,” he said slyly.
I rolled my eyes. “I keep saying, the porch is still standing. I don’t see what needs to be done with it so long as it’s still standing.”
“Keep it standing for a long time to come,” he said dryly.
“Where do you think Deacon and Greer are going to live once they get married?” Charlie asked. Now that was something that had been bothering her for real.
Jasper glanced at me, then looked back to Charlie and shrugged. “I have a feeling Deacon is going to do whatever Greer wants. That’s usually how it’s supposed to go, right?” He turned to me with a wink.
I glared at him. “You make it sound like women are being unreasonable. We aren’t. Despite popular stereotypes, we’re actually the more rational gender.”
“For sure,” Charlie nodded.
“I feel outnumbered here,” Jasper complained, with a smile. “I don’t think Deacon cares where he lives, to be honest.”
“It’s just that he has this nice little house already,” said Charlie.
“Maybe they’ll live there. I have a feeling Greer will want to make something her own,” I said.
“That’s true. Maybe they could build something together. Maybe really close to here,” Charlie suggested.
That surprised me. Charlie had lived with me for a while, but I hadn’t realized how strongly she felt as if the farmhouse was her home.
“Deacon’s family owns several strips of land along this road. Maybe he’ll ask his mother to give him one as a wedding gift,” said Jasper. “She’ll also have to make up for his pain and suffering once his Greer’s families are through with them and their wedding.”
I supposed I was lucky my mother didn’t care whom I married. Then again, sometimes I wished she did. It would probably annoy me in the end, but at the moment I wished she was there to talk to about Jasper. I had a feeling they’d like each other. At least, Jasper would be amused by my irreverent mother.
We sat in silence for a few moments, then Charlie broke the silence by looking at me and asking, “What are you doing today?”
“I’m going to see Liam. He’s getting frantic about the festival deadline. I don’t think he’ll be ready in time, but I’m not going to tell him that. I also thought we might track down the couples Haley was working with at the time of her murder.”
“Yeah, I thought the same thing,” agreed Charlie. “I looked into it, and the first couple is out of town, so the Robertsons will have to suffice for today. Apparently Mrs. Robertson volunteers at the library, but only now and then.”
The library was one place I’d been meaning to visit anyhow, so I mentally put it on my list.
“You want to meet me after lunch? I have a feeling that after I check on all the animals and help Liam, that’s about what time it’s going to be,” I said.
Charlie nodded. “I can do that,” she said. “I need the morning to write another article anyway. I know Henrietta wanted me to keep her name out of it, but I don’t think I can let the story go. Lena says it’s getting good play in the paper. She thinks it’s because everyone loves a good wedding story, even if murder is involved.”
“That’s kind of gruesome,” said Jasper.
“Yep,” said Charlie, standing up to gather her things.
We were all silent for a few moments as Jasper and I finished the last of our breakfast and Charlie lingered. I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of going back to the two houses where I had recently seen dark ghosts, but I certainly wasn’t going to chicken out.
Maybe, I told myself, the dark ghosts particularly liked houses where there were cats, and it was all just a big coincidence.
If they did, they could have Paws.
But the coincidence idea was just wishful thinking, and I knew it. It was time to get going.
“What are you doing today?” I asked Jasper.
He stretched his arms over his head and grinned. “First of all I’m going to stroll across the street and check on the house. Then I have board meetings, and after that my grandfather wants to have lunch. He does that about once a week to get an update on my projects.”
“Do we have any idea when Deacon is coming back?” I asked.
“I’m pretty sure it’s today,” put in Charlie, who was still fussing with her things. “I think Greer said he cut his trip short after all the drama around the wedding. He felt like he had to come back and support her in person. He should be here tonight unless something changes the plan.”
“Maybe we should have Hansen over as well,” I said. Then I realized that I had basically implied that Jasper would already be at the house.
Well, he probably would be.
Charlie shrugged. “He would probably appreciate a chance to ask questions about ghosts.”
“Yes, let’s have him over out of the goodness of our hearts. Just doing
him a favor.”
Charlie refused to look at me, and backtracked the conversation instead of replying. “I hope Deacon and Greer decide to live near here. Kinda gotten used to having everybody around. I suppose stuff has to change, even if I don’t want it to, but I think Greer likes being here as well.”
“I hope so too,” I said. Then I turned to Jasper and said, “I had an idea. What if we talk to some of your ancestors who are buried in that private cemetery in Mintwood?”
Far from thinking it was a bad idea, Jasper thought it was great. “That’s amazing! I never even thought of that! Of course that’s the best place to start. Get the history of what we’re dealing with. I’m sure Cobalt Wolf would have a thing or two to say about Witch Hunters,” he concluded.
“Can I come too?” Charlie asked. If there was information to be gathered, Charlie wanted to be in on it.
“Sure,” I said. “Maybe we can go tonight.”
And so it was agreed.
This felt like the first tangible progress we had made in a while in the fight against Ellie. Recently, all I’d really been doing was getting attacked and running. If we could get the Witch Hunters on our side, that would be one thing. Another would be putting up a magical fence around the entire town. In order to do that, I needed to look through Evenlyn’s spell books, and I hadn’t yet found the time for that.
Anyhow, at the moment my mind was still at home. We had just been discussing our living situations, which I was realizing was a topic close to my heart.
I couldn’t really imagine living anywhere but at the farmhouse. It was something that had worried me about my relationship with Jasper.
Jasper’s land portfolio around the county kept expanding. He had a barn and he had a cabin on the lake. His grandfather had extensive real estate holdings. Not that Jasper wanted anything fancy, but if he ever did move into my house, we would have to fix the porch.
Then my stomach did a little dance. I was actually thinking about living with Jasper Wolf.
Yeah, that’s right, I was.
Mysterious Mintwood Murmurs Page 12